TOPIC: Limesurvey;Social Network Survey, help with a difficult question

But looking at your survey I think you will be running into serious problems with the limit of your database. Currently you do have more than 1400 subquestions already. Each subquestion will need a column. But depending on the database implementation your database might only support 1000 columns!

I think the fact that you have a list of over 400 companies twice in your survey (and for two languages - don't know if this impacts as well) is probably "breaking your neck".

I tried to add another array filter group for testing and for the second question I couldn't add more than one subquestion for the horizontal scale. I assume that I am running in the limit of the database.

But when I try to add them, Limesurvey says that they have been added sucessfully, but then they don't show up. This might be actually a bug in Limesurvey.

I was also starting to think that this is a database issue, because honestly all the other options are what they should be. And you are probably right because I remember in my tests that the two questions were working in an instance when I had around 80 companies to select from.

My problem is I really need to include all of these companies, but how can do that without going outside the database limit?

Edit: Dammit I am blind. In that error message I was talking about it actually sais "Warning: Input variables exceeded 1000. To increase the limit change max_input_chars in php.ini in Unknown on line 0"

OK, seems like the problem is also the chosen question type. You want to use array text as the second question with 3 columns.

So not only are you using 400 subquestions in 2 questions, in the second question the database must store 3 different options for this AND they are text fields which need a lot more space in the database and thus reduce the possible number of columns drastically. Only for this second question limesurvey will have to create 1200 columns (3x 400) for answer options, and those columns need reserve a lot more space.

I tried to do it with only the two questions, and even there I couldn't add 3 or even 2 horizontal subquestions for the second question. With a normal array question(radio buttons) and there I could add 3 answer options.

I think the way you want to create your survey will not work with limesurvey and as the limit is due to the database limits this will probably the same case for all tools out there.

One thing I noticed is that when inserting stuff via quick add there is a 4 added to some of the numbers, which is really weird. I need to have a further look at this to see if this is a bug or something I am doing wrong.

I am not sure how the languages impact this whole scenario with the database limit. I assume that the questions and answer options are saved in a different table, but I don't know if this also has an impact on the result table.

I think I will simply add a url link at the end of the survey (excluding these 2 last questions) linking to a new survey containing those 2 questions.

Now, since I'm kinda bad at this, do you think that even by themselves, these 2 questions (with their 325 answer options) will create the same database issues in a new survey?

Edit: On your considerations about the language and its influence to the size required, I think I will actually create two different surveys for each language. That should, if there is an impact, reduce the database requirements. Thanks for that, it's a nice addition.

I tested two similar questions (400 companies) in a separate survey and I couldn't create the 3 horizontal answer options for the second questions. So you might run into the same problem. The problems often only really appear when you try to active the survey, from what I have read here in the forums before.